


Pete Wentz's Guide to Masochistic Self-Help Rituals

by TheFourtiethHorseman



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Catharsis, Corporal Punishment, Don't Like Don't Read, Emotional Baggage, Gen, Pete remembers what it's like to be a fucking mess, Spanking, Suicidal Thoughts, They handle things in a way that's not quite conventional, Tyler is a fucking mess, set in 2013
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-30 21:31:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15105257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFourtiethHorseman/pseuds/TheFourtiethHorseman
Summary: When your friend approaches you and point-blank asks you to do it, you can’t just say no. You do it, whether you like it or not, because for some convoluted reason this person trusts you.





	Pete Wentz's Guide to Masochistic Self-Help Rituals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hopefully_not_a_shitty_ballerina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopefully_not_a_shitty_ballerina/gifts).



There was no way it was time to get up, Pete thought to himself as he blinked his eyes open and gazed at the dark hotel room ceiling above him.  He wondered what had caused him to rouse, since his alarm was silent and it was, indeed, too early to be awake. Andy snoozed peacefully next to him, dead to the world in ear buds and an eye mask.  Pete hoped it wasn’t an insomnia night. He’d been doing so well lately. 

 

“Yeah, well you know what!?” a nearby voice rang out loud and angry through the walls.  Pete blinked once, twice. He didn’t know what. His brain was clouded over and slow with sleep.  It was too early for this shit. 

 

He never got an answer, so he probably never would know what, because shortly following the exclamation was the slamming of a hotel door, and then angry footsteps pounding against the thin, cheap carpet.  

 

Huh, Pete thought to himself.  That voice kind of sounded like Tyler.  But then the noise was over, and exhaustion crawled out of the dark recesses of the night, pulling Pete down with it and back to sleep.

  
  


\----

  
  


Tyler and Josh were fighting.  Or… maybe they weren’t. Either way, they weren’t talking, and that seemed like a much more Twenty One Pilots-esque way of fighting than the way Fall Out Boy usually dealt with there problems.  The only one to ever be quiet when he was angry was Andy, who was, consequently, also the only person in Fall Out Boy who hadn’t been purposefully punched in the face by one of his band members.  Accidentally, yeah, once, and everyone had gone stock still as Andy wiped the blood from under his nose and slowly walked out of the room without a word. 

 

Andy was off limits when it came in intraband brawling, but for Twenty One Pilots Pete always figured both Tyler and Josh were off limits to each other.  Sure, they rough housed the way everyone did, wrestling and tackling and pelting each other with pretzels from across the dressing room. But their violence was exclusively void of intent.  Just like with Andy, they never swung to hit, and especially not to hurt. 

 

So this must have been fighting, Pete decided.  He was lounging in the corner, awkwardly pretending to been absorbed in his phone after several failed attempts at conversation.  He’d come here to talk about the record, because Jesus Christ, he needed these kids on the record. Vessel was bigger than should have been possible, and Pete hadn’t felt tingles like this since  _ Fever _ had blown up when he’d signed those dweeby little kids from Las Vegas.

 

He was so jealous to have not gotten to Twenty One Pilots first.  Ah, well. He’d get there second, because they were already friends and Pete could give them a way better deal than their current shitty company could ever dream of.  That was, if he could ever get them to talk to him.

 

Tyler was staring intently at the floor, already dressed in his stage clothes hours earlier than necessary.  His cellphone was klutched tightly in his hands, silent, and every few minutes he’d flip it over and check for messages.  There didn’t seem to be any. 

 

Josh, on the other hand, was treating Tyler the way Tyler was treating his cellphone.  He was equally silent, but much more reluctant about it. Every so often, he’d glance over at Tyler with the saddest expression Pete had ever seen.  If Tyler looked up, Josh would look away. When Josh caught Pete staring at him, he shrugged one shoulder helplessly, sagged back in his seat, and started drumming his palms against his thighs. 

 

That was too much for Tyler, apparently, who tightened up as soon as the noise started, and seconds later shot out of his seat with clenched fists and teeth and furrowed eyebrows.  

 

“I’m going out,” he muttered tightly, then stormed across the room.  He slammed the door behind him as he went, and seconds later a startled looking tech worker slipped into the room and shot a questioning glance to the remaining two men in the room.  Pete gave her an apologetic smile, but he didn’t know what to say. 

 

Josh did, though.  He sat up and immediately slumped forward, elbows braced on his knees and heels of his hands pressed into his eyes.  “I hate when he gets like this,” Josh groaned miserably. Pete raised an eyebrow and started drumming his heel on the ground, anticipation mixing with pre-show jitters. 

 

“Like what?” he asked, earning him another shrug. 

 

“Something’s wrong, but he won’t tell me what.  He never tells me, y’know? And then he hands me these dark ass lyrics and expects me not to worry about it.  And I wouldn’t, not really, but there’s the suicide jokes, and then he starts acting like  _ this _ , and oh-  Oh God, I’m sorry.” 

 

Josh looked incredibly guilty just then, and it actually took Pete a minute to figure out what he was talking about. 

 

Oh right, that.  It had been, what, almost a decade now?  Pete gave back a shrug of his own. “It’s fine,” he said, because it was.  Almost unanimously, these days, which wasn’t a mental place he’d ever expected to reach. 

 

Josh nodded and relaxed again, then cast a forlorn glance down at the carpet.  “I just don’t know what to do with him,” he expressed, and Pete had seen that facial expression before.  Usually he was the cause of it. “You know how long he laid on the stage last night? He was so out of it.  Usually he gets into it, yeah, but it was like he wasn’t even there….”

 

Pete stood, suddenly, coming to a quick conclusion.  “You should talk to Patrick,” he said, and then headed for the door. 

 

“What? Why?” was Josh’s immediate response, but Pete couldn’t find the words to explain.  He was steps away from the door when it swung open and Dan stepped inside. He took a look around before frowning. 

 

“Where is he?” he asked, tone of voice suggesting that he’d seen this shit before.  There was another well-worn sigh from across the room and the creek of an old couch as Josh stood up. 

 

“I’ll go find him,” he said, walking past Pete and Dan and stopping in the doorway.  He turned to Pete and couldn’t quite manage a grin. “Hey,” he said. “Thanks.” 

 

Thanks for what?  The advice maybe, though it wasn’t very good.  Pete watched him go, and decided that maybe he ought to stay away from his own dressing room for a while.  Patrick would be anxious about him being late, but Patrick could get over it. If a conversation anything like the one he was imagining was about to go down, Pete didn’t want to be there for it. 

 

He slunk back across the room and threw himself down on the couch, making it groan.  He was a little worried it’d give underneath him. He needed to lay of the taquitos. He didn’t drop pounds as quickly as he used to.  “How’s the touring life treating you, Danny?” he asked, folding his arms behind his head. Dan chuckled and gave him a grin, and yeah, Pete could feel that. 

  
  


...

  
  


Pete did not have enough fingers to count on both hands how many times Patrick had hit him.  They’d never held back with each other, even when it might have been healthier to. They never slowed down through split lips and scraped knees and bruises and the time Patrick tried to drop kick him at a gas station.  They were always ready to throw down with and for each other, and they never really tried to talk about it. Pete always justified that it was just boys being boys, and that had worked until the time Patrick caught him with his pants around his knees in a cheap hotel room with an even cheaper prostitute.

Pete had been red and raw from his shoulders to the backs of his knees, and all he could think to defend himself was yelling, “It’s not a sex thing!” which only made the situation weirder, all things considered. 

 

They’d talked after that, brief and tense and horrible, because Pete wasn’t ready to talk about his own insanity, and Patrick was only- fuck… seventeen?  Eighteen? Patrick was too young to wrap his mind around any of it, or so Pete had thought. 

 

The conversation had been bad. 

 

“So... you like to be hit?”

 

Pete had laughed bitterly at that.  “No.” 

 

“You like to be hurt?” 

 

“I need to hurt.”  The words had come out in the world’s greatest Freudian slip, like a lightbulb being lit for the first time.  “It… it has to be physical, and it can’t be my fault.. It doesn’t work if I’m hurting myself, but I still need it.”  It killed him to explain it, but at this point he had nothing left to lose. 

 

Or so he’d thought. 

 

Patrick had gotten up and left after that, without another word, and Pete had tortured himself over the implications until several hours later, when Joe knocked on the door holding a belt. 

 

It had been another awkward, but somehow less painful, conversation to turn Joe away, saying ‘No, not now.  I’m fine for now.’ Which was only partially the truth. 

 

He’d been more fucked emotionally than he was willing to admit to himself, and the way the endorphins rushed out of his body had left him more depressed than he’d been in a good while.  Which was when he usually sought out the pain in the first place. But to be still hurting,  _ and  _ still depressed, was just some kind of cruel trick. 

 

But it wore off, just like it always did, even though half the time back then Pete was convinced that the bad moments were going to last forever.  If he expected anything to change between Patrick and himself, or between himself and Joe, he had been wrong. They were still as rough and tumble and in each other’s pockets as they always had been, the four of them, as if nothing had changed.  And maybe it hadn’t. 

 

When had they ever had boundaries, anyways?

 

Pete had almost let the whole situation slip his mind by the time it happened again.  In fact, he’d distanced himself so far from the memory, that when Patrick cornered him in the back of their empty bus, he’d been genuinely surprised. 

 

His behavior had been riding the razor’s edge between obnoxious and being absolutely unacceptable.  Joe had retired to the bunks early on, swearing both under his breath and outloud about how Pete had to “get a God damn grip, man-  _ fuck _ .”  Patrick had put on his giant, noise cancelling headphones and disappeared into the front lounge, and that left Pete and Andy. 

 

But they didn’t make it very much longer before Andy lowered his phone, gave Pete a very meaningful look, and walked out of the back room.  Pete hadn’t thought much about it, just ‘good job, Wentz, ya fucked it up again.’ But his mood was far too high to falter under a few glares.  He sat, reading and watching TV and waiting for a text to come in, damn near vibrating out of his seat until the bus rolled to a stop, and then several moments later, Patrick stepped into the back lounge. 

 

“You need it today, don’t you?” he’d asked, and Pete had blinked up at him blankly, because  _ no, _ he hadn’t.  But sometimes he trusted Patrick more than himself. Sometimes Patrick’s head was a safer place to be. 

 

“How do you want to do this?” Pete hadn’t had a solid answer, but eventually he’d let Patrick bend him over with his hands on the couch cushions and held himself still until he was sobbing.  Until every strike felt like ripping off a fresh strip of skin, and Pete had unlocked his knees and let his legs crumple underneath him. He’d dropped his face into the gross ass couch cushions, and it was several long, frozen seconds before Patrick dropped the belt on the floor and knelt down beside him. 

 

“Hey, you okay?” Patrick had asked, his voice holding an uncertain waiver that was so out of character it caught Pete off guard.  He’d lied, because of it. He’d nodded and wiped his face and pulled his pants back up before retreating to the bunks Joe had evacuated quite a while ago.  He curled up and drew the curtain tight. He tried to tell himself that he didn’t hate Patrick for doing it, and that he didn’t hate himself for crying. 

  
  
  


\---- 

 

So maybe Pete had some experience.  Maybe he and Patrick had gone through that more than a few times over the years, and maybe they’d gotten better at it as they went along and learned to stop damn near breaking each other.  But obviously, in Pete’s humble opinion, he wasn’t a professional. Obviously he had no authority on the matter, no right to be giving life advice, and certainly no right to be the one administering this weird masochistic self-help ritual. 

 

But when your friend approaches you and point-blank asks you to do it, you can’t just say no.  You do it, whether you like it or not, because for some convoluted reason this person trusts you. 

 

Which was how Pete wound up in his current situation, cornered in the back lounge of his own bus watching Tyler practically shake apart in front of him, hands firmly buried in pockets, lips pressed together so tight they were nearly invisible, face stained the same bright red as the hoodie he was wearing, even though it was eighty degrees outside.

 

Pete asked, “How do you want to do this?” and watched Tyler’s shoulders draw up even tighter than before.  He looked small like this, which was strange because he was taller than Pete was. He also looked mortified.  Pete could feel for him- he really could- even though he rarely felt embarrassed about anything anymore. Life was too short, he figured, to give a fuck what anyone else was thinking, but Tyler wasn’t wired that way. 

 

It was funny how similar their song lyrics were when they had such different life approaches. 

 

Anyways.  Tyler wasn’t going to give him any answers, and Pete figured it was now or never.  He nodded and said, “Bend over the table,” thought about it for a moment, and added, “Take your pants down.” 

 

Tyler’s eyes widened comically, and he stood very still for a long moment. Pete was scared he’d crossed a line, that Tyler was going to back out and run for it.  And it wasn’t like Pete would stop him. He didn’t want to do this either; he was doing this  _ for _ Tyler, so really, he wasn’t the one with any power over the situation. 

 

Just went Pete was tempted to call the whole thing off, Tyler shook himself out of his shock and turned around, eyes fixed stubbornly on his shoes.  He fumbled with the button of his jeans, hands still trembling, before finally getting it undone and shoving his pants down to the middle of his thighs.  He leaned forward over the table, hands braced against it, and froze again. 

 

Shit.  That put the ball back in Pete’s court.

 

He really should have known this was all going to happen to him.  He’d told Josh to go talk to Patrick, knowing full well that Patrick might disclose the secret that was off limits to anyone outside of the four of them.  Most things weren’t off limits for the band- anything was free reign for giving your friends hell, but not that. Not that, and not one or two other things.  

 

Pete could count the things they weren’t allowed to talk about one on hand. 

 

He should have seen this coming, though.  He’d been watching Tyler spiral worse and worse ever since his talk with Josh in their dressing room.  He watched him disappear after shows, hide away during down time, and snap defensively at anyone who tried to corner him. He’d seen the stress building in the creases around Dan and Mark’s eyes and the way Josh cast meaningful glances in whatever direction Tyler had disappeared to whenever he thought no one was paying attention. 

 

And when they’d pulled up to the venue an hour ahead of schedule, and Patrick had stopped him at the door with the words, “Hang back for a while, okay?”  It sent a scared thrill down his spine, a remnant of their youth and the strange agreement they used to have. 

 

Pete retired to the couch in the front lounge and wondered silently what Patrick was up to, but then Tyler had come through the door. 

 

“You lost?” Pete had asked, jokingly, and Tyler hadn’t even cracked a smile.  The conversation that followed was tremendously more uncomfortable for Tyler than it was for Pete, but it was still up there in Pete’s top ten. 

 

“I just… I… I can’t even explain what’s going on,” Tyler had expressed, when prompted, and Pete just sat back and let him go off by himself while he pieced the situation together. 

 

Touring was high stress- Pete knew this.  And Twenty One Pilots had only been big for, what?  A year now? A little longer. Touring was hard, and these guys didn’t even have the usual vices of drugs and alcohol to tamper down the nerves that came with the lifestyle.  The more Tyler talked and paced, the more that spilled out of him. He was stressed about the tour. He was exhausted. His lack of sleep was probably the cause of the ridiculous mood swings he was talking about, but Tyler wasn’t conscious enough to connect that.  He was worried about the album, which was so big now he didn’t think he could ever be able do it again. He was getting older, and that was terrifying, and he couldn’t tell Josh any of it, which he was worried was going to break them apart. 

 

“I just… I don’t know… and I keep thinking about….” 

 

He was suicidal, sometimes, or at least filled with ideations, and fuck, Pete related so hard to this kid it was ridiculous.  Tyler’s hands shook as he talked, flapping nearly out of control, as he explained that he’d been fighting with his parents, how he had no idea how he was supposed to live up to their standards and make them proud with this kind of lifestyle, because…

 

“They’re not like Josh’s family, y’know?  His dad wants him to be  _ happy _ .  My mom’s never settled for anything less than perfection.” And yeah, Pete had heard the basketball story.  He had a grasp of it. 

 

Tyler went on for what was approaching twelve minutes before he finally trembled to a stop and threw a glare at Pete that was so frustrated and desperate, it actually made him hold his breath for a second. 

 

“Aren’t you going to  _ say anything _ ?” he hissed in a tone that was so very much unlike him.

 

This was it, though, sink or swim.  Pete folded his arms over his chest and said, “You didn’t come here for a conversation though, did you?” And the expression melted right off of Tyler’s face, and he looked very, very lost for a moment. 

 

It struck Pete that maybe Tyler  _ had _ come there for a conversation.  After all, he spoke like someone who hadn’t had the chance to say any of those things before.  Pete was a fan of venting his frustrations, of trapping his band and anyone else he could get his hands on while he spilled his guts about whatever had been pissing him off recently.

 

Maybe Tyler wasn’t like that, though.  Maybe he didn’t get to talk like this often. 

 

But Pete wasn’t entirely wrong.  Tyler took a long, quiet moment to think about Pete’s question before hesitantly shaking his head.  Pete sighed and nodded, braced his hands on his knees, and heaved himself up to his feet. “What did Patrick tell you?” he asked, and watched Tyler’s eyebrows furrow. 

“Nothing…. But Josh, um….” Ah yes, of course.  There was an entire grapevine going, then. 

 

“You have to tell me what you want,” Pete insisted, not trying to be an asshole about it, but really not wanting to get anything wrong.  Tyler cast that same broken look at the ground before rubbing his hands over his face. 

 

“I just feel so guilty about everything…” he murmured, another sentiment Pete wished he couldn’t relate to so well.

 

Pete scrubbed a hand through his hair- fuck, how long had it been since he showered last, and that caught them up to speed then. 

 

“Bend over the table,” he said, “And take down your pants.”

 

“You ever been spanked before?” Pete asked, trying not to choke on the word as he went into the bunks and rooted around Patrick’s stuff for a belt.  His face burned with embarrassment, and a shaky laugh followed him from the lounge. 

 

“What do you think?” Tyler asked, but Pete wasn’t actually sure.  Tyler and Josh were two of the most straight laced people he’d ever met, so he doubted they’d ever done anything kinky.  Then again, Pete had heard stories about some of his own friends’ religious midwestern parents. Crazy mother fuckers. 

 

Pete doubled the belt over and walked back into the lounge, found Tyler glancing at him over his shoulder, and he looked a little more relaxed somehow.  Less on the verge of tears, and Pete thought it was funny how even the anticipation was a guilt deterrent. At least for him. 

 

Maybe he was projecting. 

 

“You ready?” Pete asked.  Tyler had bright green and blue plaid underwear, loose boxers that would be absolutely no protection from the sting of leather.  He was still wearing the stupid hoodie, and it fell down his back, over his ass. Pete placed a hand in the middle of his shoulder blades and pushed him a little closer to the table, more horizontal, and nudged his hoodie out of the way.

 

“Just do it,” Tyler answered him, so Pete lined up, cocked an arm back, and swung. 

 

Tyler shot straight up like an arrow.  “ _ Fuck!” _ he yelped, and that was a word Pete wasn’t sure he’d heard Tyler say before.  He stopped and stood back as Tyler caught himself and slowly leaned back down, elbows on the table. 

 

“Sorry,” he murmured.  

 

“You have to hold yourself still,” Pete answered, Joe’s voice echoing through his head from years ago.  “I don’t want to hurt you.” 

 

Tyler laughed bitterly, shifted his weight, and dropped his head between his shoulders.  “Fine,” he answered. Pete waited for him to still, raised the belt, and swung again. 

 

This time Tyler didn’t yell, but it was very close to it.  He rocked forward onto the balls of his feet, hips knocking into the table and rattling it against the wall.  He made a choked off noise behind clenched teeth, and then sucked in a breath. 

 

Yeah, it stung.  Pete hit him again. 

 

“Okay!  Nevermind!” Tyler declared, shooting up again and stumbling away from the table, whirling on Pete and glaring with all the vehemence he could muster.  “I can’t do this. This isn’t going to work. Just forget it. Okay?” 

 

The shaking was back, and it made it very difficult as Tyler tried to tug his pants back up his legs.  It seemed a bit counterproductive to stop  _ now _ , though, even though that’s what Tyler said he wanted.  

 

Pete had another idea.  He dropped the belt. 

 

Tyler stared at him after that, mouth hanging open ever so slightly and one hand holding his pants up crooked a few inches below his hips.  “Wha-”

 

“I have an idea,” Pete said, kicking the belt under the table and walking backwards to the couch, where he sat down without ceremony and dropped his hands next to him.  “Come here.” 

 

“You can’t be serious,” was Tyler’s gobsmacked answer.

 

Pete raised one eyebrow, a move he’d stolen from his ex-wife that he knew meant ‘ _ try me, bitch _ .’  Pete wasn’t sure that’s what he was trying to communicate, but then again, he had no real idea what he was doing.  “Come here,” he repeated. “And take your hoodie off. You’re going to fucking overheat.” 

 

By some strange miracle, Tyler listened to him, though he followed Pete’s commands slowly and with a still disbelieving expression.  He tugged his hoodie over his head and dropped it on the floor, then took the few hesitant steps to Pete’s side. Pete reached out and took his wrist, tugging gently.  

 

Tyler followed him down. 

 

It was weird, arranging someone on your lap like this.  The weight against his legs was almost comfortable, and he smoothed his hand over Tyler’s back, through his t-shirt, while he spoke. 

 

“How far do you want to go with this?” he asked.  “Do you need to cry?” 

 

There were already tears in Tyler’s eyes from the belt.  He responded with another quiet laugh. “I don’t know.”

 

“Do you need to apologize?”

 

Tyler threw an offended glare over his shoulder.  “For  _ what _ ?” he asked. 

 

Pete shrugged.  “You tell me.” 

 

Tyler dropped his head back down against the couch cushions.  He folded his arms and hid behind them, stretched out entirely from one end of the couch to the other, bare elbows to sock feet.  “Whatever. Make me cry, I guess.”

 

“Tell me if you want to stop,” Pete instructed, earning him a snort, and then he raised his hand above his head and dropped it. 

 

He didn’t really hit that hard, but the strike was enough to startle Tyler into a full body flinch.  Pete smoothed a hand down his back and hit him again. This time, there was just a hitch of breath. 

 

“You don’t have to hold still now,” Pete said, and spanked him again.  Tyler squeaked. “But if you kick me in the face, I’ll fill your bunk with ice.” 

 

“Wha- ow!” Tyler yelped and jerked forward under Pete’s arm.  Pete leaned in, pressed his elbow between Tyler’s shoulder blades, and let him have it. 

 

Maybe Tyler hadn’t been spanked before, Pete mused, and he reigned swat after burning swat down on the seat of Tyler’s boxers and watched the younger man kick and buck and yell underneath him.  He was being awfully loud. With their luck, someone outside the bus was going to hear and figure out what was going on. 

 

Oh well…. Besides the crew, there wasn’t anyone who would be terribly surprised. 

 

Pete had always fought for silence during these things, biting his lip bloody and measuring his breaths carefully to keep from showing how badly it hurt.  He’d break down, eventually, but it took a lot, and Patrick never kept going after Pete started to cry. 

 

Tyler, on the other hand, was an unholy terror.  Poor eating habits worked in Pete’s favor, and he was able to hold him down.  Pete may have been cursed by the gods of stature, but Tyler Joseph was skin and bones.  His hand ached, but he didn’t stop until he’d laid down twenty stinging spanks on Tyler’s ass.  That made twenty-seven then, with the three from the belt and the four after. 

 

“You okay?” Pete asked, and spanked him lightly, not much more than a pat.  Tyler jumped, then laughed, probably at himself. 

 

“Fine,” he said, voice muffled by the couch cushions.  He didn’t say anything else, and he didn’t make a move to get up.  It wasn’t over, then. Pete was a fool for thinking it might be. 

 

The struggling must have been cathartic, Pete figured, as he worked his way through the next twenty strikes.  Tyler wasn’t trying to move out of the way or throw Pete off of him, he was just flailing. Every few spanks would earn him a surprised, “Ow!”  His hands gripped on tight to the couch cushions as he kept his forehead attached firmly to the couch. 

 

They reached fifty, and Pete stopped for a moment to stretch his hand out.  It ached, but not badly. It was red, and that made him curious. 

 

“Lift your hips,” he said, tapping Tyler gently on the back of the thigh.  He received a whimper for his efforts, but Tyler still did as he was told, and Pete was able to slide his boxers down to his knees. 

 

His ass was glowing pink, a stark contrast against the color of his thighs, but not nearly the color Pete knew it could be.  He used to have welts and bruises, and only once, broken skin. Pete didn’t necessarily want to make Tyler’s ass turn  _ purple _ , but he needed to do enough to actually help him.  Stopping prematurely was worse than doing nothing at all. 

 

He let his hand fall heavier this time, palm crashing against bare skin, and Tyler actually shouted.  “ _ Ah! _ ”  Pete spanked him again, and again, catching Tyler off guard and surprising him.  He gasped and shouted, and squirmed under Pete’s arm. “A-ah! W-wait, not so-  _ ah!  Pete!” _

 

“Something wrong?” Pete asked, slowing the cadence but keeping up the strength of the spanks.  Tyler let out an irritated growl and buried his face again, feet drumming against the arm of the couch.  

 

“You ready to stop yet?” Pete laid a particularly hard set of smacks on the undercleft of Tyler’s ass, making him yell into the couch.  Pete waited a second for an answer, and after a moment or two, Tyler shook his head. 

 

Pete sped up again after that, laying spanks down hard and faster than he had before, and this time when Tyler struggled against him, he was actually moving to get away.  Pete locked his arm around him and kept at it, even though his hand was on fire and his shoulder was aching and Tyler wasn’t even yelping at individual smacks anymore, just letting out a constant string of nonlexical complaints.

 

Pete lost count somewhere along the way, but they had to be nearing eighty when Tyler broke.  Pete was sweating and slightly out of breath, and Tyler pitched forward one more time before sagging like a rag doll, boneless.  He’d tried kicking himself off of Pete’s lap before, so their current position had him with one hand and one foot braced against the floor.  The other arm was gripping tightly to the couch cushions, and his head was hanging between his arms. He gasped in a wet breath, and shuddered on the exhale, trying desperately to hold back crying. 

 

“Is that enough?” Pete asked him, and he was genuinely surprised when Tyler shook his head. 

 

“N-no,” he choked out, sniffling and wiping his hand under his nose.  It came back wet. “Not yet, please, I-” 

 

“Twenty more,” Pete interrupted, because that number had been working well enough for him so far.  “Then we’re done. Okay?”

 

Tyler’s response was a whisper, “Okay.”  Pete rubbed his back for a few more seconds, and when he spanked him again, right on the middle of his ass, Tyler’s breath came out in a sob.  

 

He made it, crying, through fourteen.  After Pete brought his hand down for fifteen, Tyler threw a hand back to block.  “I’m sorry,” he cried out, tears heavy in his voice. “I’m sorry, stop, please, I can’t-” 

 

“Okay,” Pete said, rubbing over his back and his shoulders and the back of his neck.  “Okay, it’s alright, breathe. It’s over.” 

 

They stayed there for a while, Tyler spread out over Pete’s lap, body wracked with tears, Pete wiping the sweat off his forehead and running his fingers through the hair on the back of Tyler’s head, waiting for him to calm down. 

 

He’d learned a long time ago that what happens afterwards is just as important as the act himself.  It’d been much smoother sailing after they’d figured that out, after Pete had stopped running immediately, and Patrick had stopped letting him be alone.

 

Eventually, when Tyler’s breathing was as close to evened out as they could hope for, Pete put a hand on his shoulder and pulled gently, urging him back up.  Tyler struggled up clumsily, probably a bit dizzy, and righted his boxers as he went. His jeans, looser than what he normally wore, had gotten kicked across the room sometime during the whole ordeal.  He didn’t bother putting them back on, just sank gently down onto the couch next to Pete, pulled his knees to his chest, and wrapped his arms around them. 

 

“You want to talk about it?” Pete asked, and Tyler shook his head.  Pete reached past him, to the table, and grabbed the remote to turn on the television.  He was going to be late for soundcheck, but that was fine. Patrick would cover for him. 

 

One of these days, Pete would really have to stop letting Patrick take care of him. 

 

Not today, though.  Today he was going to be late, and he and Tyler were going to sit on the couch and watch the Naruto dvd that had been left in the DVD player, while Tyler slowly relaxed and uncurled himself, until they were both slouching on the couch, finally relaxed. 

 

An episode and a half in, and an elbow nudge against Pete’s shoulder.  He glanced over to find Tyler with his eyes still glued to the TV. 

 

“Thanks,” Tyler murmured, “For… you know.” 

 

“Any time,” Pete responded, and Tyler hummed quietly, considering it.  Pete wondered if he was going to have to do that again, if Tyler was going to learn how to cope with the pressures that accompanied this lifestyle.  Pete didn’t know for sure, but he had faith in him. 

 

_ “Believe it!” _ the TV encouraged him, and Pete glanced up to find Naturo with a toothy grin and a thumbs up held towards the camera.  Tyler chuckled, and Pete sank a little bit lower. His arm was fucking killing him. 

  
  


\-----

 

It was two a.m. and Tyler was tired and there was a party.  There was always a party, which was why Tyler didn’t feel too guilty about bidding everyone goodnight and disappearing down the hall to his own hotel room.  The party room was feeling too claustrophobic. There was music playing loud enough to be heard by show-deaf musicians, and people shouting over it in an attempt to hold a half a dozen conversations.  Most everyone was drinking or smoking or both, and Tyler had to wonder how the hotel was okay with any of this, but he guessed that wasn’t his problem to worry about. 

 

He was too tired to keep his eyelids open all the way, but most importantly, the only place to sit in the room was the floor.  

 

Tyler had put up with it as long as he could stand to, but the exhaustion took away his patience and he had to tap out.  The sound of the party leaked through the walls and into the hallway, getting more and more muted as he went, until he unlocked his door and shut it firmly behind him, and everything was silent. 

 

He sighed then, heavy and relaxed and felt the headache that was radiating from the back of his neck leak into the calm air around him.  He kicked off his shoes and wrestled himself out of his jeans, dropping both by the door and going into the bathroom to shower. 

 

He’d showered earlier, but that was just to get rid of the post show stench that had soaked into his clothes.  That was before hanging out with thirty people in a two-person hotel room. The summer humidity had him hot and sticky, and he smelled like an ashtray. 

 

Tyler didn’t bother closing the door as he turned on the shower.  Josh wouldn’t come back for a while, probably, but if he did come back early he wouldn’t see anything he hadn’t already seen before.  

 

A small handful of people had seen Tyler naked in his life, the most recent being Josh and Jenna.  Oh yeah, and Pete Wentz, now. 

 

So maybe there was  _ something _ Josh hadn’t seen before.  Tyler peeled his boxer briefs down his hips and shucked his t-shirt over his head, then turned his back on the mirror, held his breath, and glanced over his shoulder. 

 

“Oh,” he said, voice loud in the otherwise quiet hotel room.  Tyler’s neighbors weren’t nearly as loud as the party down the hall, and the running water echoed quietly like white noise.   He didn’t have to hide his surprise when he was alone. He couldn’t help but wish he’d looked in the mirror earlier. 

 

Tyler wasn’t a guy who spent a significant amount of time looking at his ass, but he was used to it looking… paler.  The whole area, from the tops of his thighs to just below the small of his back was dusted pink and sore to the touch, like a sunburn.  There were bruises, too. Larger ones in the middle of each cheek, and dime sized ones scattered around the edges, which Tyler could only imagine were from Pete’s fingertips.  The bruises were a dark purple, and some areas were a brighter color, almost red.  _ Welts _ . 

 

Well… damn.  Tyler certainly couldn’t remember any childhood spankings leaving him like this. 

 

He felt his face heat up and his stomach turn over as he thought back to how he’d ended up sobbing over Pete’s laps, clutching onto the couch and fighting against Pete like some little kid.  And he’d _asked_ _for it_.  The worst part, possibly, was that he hadn’t told Pete to stop when he could have.  

 

No, not quite.  The worst part was that it helped. 

 

Because while Tyler was exhausted and embarrassed and far more sore than he’d expected to be.  He’d never had a pain linger with him like this, except for that time he’d broken his ankle, but even then they’d given him painkillers.  This wasn’t the kind of thing to take painkillers for. 

 

Tyler made quick work of the shower, hissing under the hot water at first because he’d forgotten the water pressure  _ hurt _ .  Before long the pounding of water against the shower walls started to drive him crazy, and Tyler stepped out of the shower and into a pair of pajama pants before collapsing face first on one of the queen sized beds. 

 

He considered calling Jenna, but then decided it could wait until tomorrow.  He still wasn’t sure how much he was going to tell her about this… if he would tell her at all…  _ how _ he would tell her.  He turned the TV on for background noise and shut all the lights off, plugged in his phone and relished in how  _ amazing _ it felt to be spread out under the covers.  To be anywhere besides his bunk on the tour bus.  

 

Just as he was fading off into sleep, his phone buzzed and brought him back.  He peeled open tired eyes and squinted at the blinding screen, and saw two new texts from Josh. 

 

The first read,  **heading to the room in 30.**

Tyler’s stomach flipped over with the second one, which read,  **Just had a talk with Peterick.  If you need anything, Im here for you.  Just ask me.**

 

A third came in while he was still reading.  It said,  **besides, itd be fun to take you down a peg ;P. Love you best fren <3 <3 <3** .

 

Tyler closed Josh’s messages with an eye roll and opened one of his earlier conversations.  A text from Pete sat there, unopened. It said,  **Hope you’re okay, kid.  We good?**

 

_ Yeah _ , Tyler thought to himself.  Somehow, strangely enough, he felt better than he had in weeks.  He nuzzled deeper into his pillow and typed back a quick message:  **no hard feelings** , before dropping his phone and falling asleep.


End file.
